


Supergirl vs the Bottle Flip Challenge

by alittlelesspain



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesspain/pseuds/alittlelesspain
Summary: The Girl of Steel, able to catch planes and leap buildings in a single bound, finds herself stumped by trying to land a water bottle upright after flipping it.Luckily, Lucy is here to help Kara through this trying time.(Written for the Supergirl Femslash Exchange 2017, for the prompt --> "I bet the rest of this pizza I could do that if i really wanted to." Silly YouTube video/stunt/trick, surprising success or epic failure are both cool.)





	Supergirl vs the Bottle Flip Challenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hellagay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellagay/gifts).



> Dear hellagay, you provided the prompt --> "I bet the rest of this pizza I could do that if i really wanted to." Silly YouTube video/stunt/trick, surprising success or epic failure are both cool.
> 
> I know you gave a bunch of ship choices I could do this for, but Kara/Lucy seemed to be your preferred one, so I wrote/drew it for that. I hope you like it!

It starts with Winn almost missing his turn during monopoly on game night. Twice.

The first time, he’s thumbing down his phone, and James has to shoulder him to get him to make his move. The second time, James’ attention is _also_ taken up by whatever is playing on Winn’s phone, and he too almost misses his turn. Kara reaches over to poke them, and then she’s engrossed in whatever is on the screen too.

“What are you watching, Winn?” Lucy finally exclaims, trying not to let too much annoyance bleed through into her voice. Ok, maybe she takes these games too seriously.

Before she can blink, Winn has pulled up the video up onto Kara’s flatscreen, so that they can all watch, while mumbling some technobabble that Lucy frankly can’t be bothered to follow.

There’s a progression of videos on the screen now, of people flipping water bottles onto various surfaces. The trick, it seems, is to make the bottle land upright after throwing it. Now that she’s really focusing on it, Lucy is pretty sure she remembers scrolling through a couple of these video on her phone last week, while checking through her social media feeds.

“Ok, but what’s the big deal about flipping a bottle?” Alex breaks in, after the fourth video. “Why is this so popular? I bet I could do that _easy._ ”

And then, of course, they all have to try it, with the winner getting first grab at the pizza that is due to be delivered to the apartment. Half-empty bottles of water are found, a space is cleared in the living room, and the monopoly game is forgotten, as the little group tries to replicate the challenge. Even Lucy finds herself getting into it, never being one to back down from a competition.

Vasquez and James both get it right on the first try. Astra refuses point blank to do it, Cat ignores them, and J’onn gets out of it by offering to film the rest of them trying the challenge. Alex gets it right after a couple of tries, muttering what sounds like calculations under her breath, while Kara trash-talks her and Astra watches fondly. Lucy’s never done it before, but she figures it’s not that far off from flipping a knife, and her father had taught her that trick before she turned nine. She gets it right on the first try, too. Winn’s bottle wobbles a lot before steadying itself, but he gets there in the end. But, Kara....

Kara _sucks_ at it. Her first attempt barely flips, as if she had been trying to hold her super strength back, but overdid it. Her second and third attempts wobble before falling, prompting Alex to soundly pay her back for all the trash-talking Kara had directed at her earlier.

Her fourth try, though, takes the cake. When Kara flips the bottle for the fourth time, in some frustration, the bottle goes whizzing all the way up to the roof of the apartment, before exploding upon impact in a fountain of water and plastic shrapnel.

There’s chaos, as the little group tries to avoid the the shards. Alex and James jump out of the way adroitly, Astra pulls Vasquez and Cat behind the couch with her, while J’onn phases backwards into a safe corner.

And Lucy...

Well, Lucy would have jumped out of the way too, had not several tons of terrified Kryptonian jumped on top of her, covering her body and shielding her from the shards.

“I’m fine, Kara.” Lucy mutters, futilely pushing against her would-be savior, aware of both James and Alex staring at them oddly. “Get _off.”_

And of course, that’s when the apartment door would open.

“Pizza’s here!” Maggie exclaims from the doorway, while she holds it open for someone else to enter as well. “And I ran into Lena in the elev-”

She stops, staring wide-eyed at the display in front of her, as does Lena Luthor behind her, who almost drops the case of ridiculously high-grade wine that she’s carrying.

Lucy sighs, getting up as Kara scrambles off her. She’s never going to live this one down.

\---

 

Lucy’s first indication that Kara isn’t simply going to let that bottle thing go comes when she walks into her kitchen on the morning of her next day off, to find her friend sitting down on the counter, scribbling things on several pieces of paper.

Kara’s presence, by itself, isn’t a strange sight. Lucy isn’t sure when Kara started using her apartment as a second home, but it had certainly developed over the months since stopping Myriad, as their friendship developed too. That the same person who had once been the “other woman” in Lucy’s doomed relationship with James, would now become one of her closest friends, is just another indication that nothing in Lucy’s life has worked out the way she had planned it. Not that she’s complaining.

On this particular morning, Lucy notices that her entire counter is a mess of paper, riddled with what seems to be equations and graphs. Before she can open her mouth to question it, Kara is looking up, forehead still furrowed in concentration. She points to a steaming mug standing on the only clean space on the counter, effectively stalling both Lucy’s question and her walk to the coffee maker.

“I stopped by Noonan’s, and got you that latte you like.” Kara says, before going back to her scribbling.

Lucy, still sleepy from a late night at the DEO, just watches Kara for a while as she drinks, fingers instinctively curling around the heat of the mug. It _is_ the latte she likes, the one where the barista sprinkles in that extra bit of cinnamon and mystery spice that gives the coffee a little kick. And Kara had _remembered._

“What are you doing?” she eventually ventures, when the mug is just about empty, Lucy’s drowsiness having disappeared with its contents.

“Plotting.” Kara says mysteriously, slapping the pen down on the paper with a self-satisfied look on her face. “That’ll teach Alex to laugh at me.”

Lucy watches the parabolas and arcs drawn on the pieces of paper. She’s never been much of a mathematician or scientist, but she’s been in enough ops to recognize trajectory arcs. And those calculations written down on the side, they remind her of the wind resistance and temperature calculations she’d spotted during briefings.

Funny, she had taken Alex to be the scientist out of the two Danvers sisters.

“You’re doing all this to flip a simple bottle?” she asks Kara. “Seriously?”

Kara nods, looking thoroughly convinced.

Lucy sighs, puts down the mug, and moves to Kara’s side of the counter.

“Ok, come on.” she says, chivvying her off the counter and in the direction of the small yard leading out of the kitchen. Kara gives way under her insistence, allowing herself to be pulled outside, and Lucy tries not to be thrilled at that, at _Supergirl_ bending to her whim like that.

Lucy guides her to some uncluttered space in the yard, before going back to fish out some half-empty bottles from her fridge. When she heads back out, Kara is waiting with an expectant but curious look on her face, that clears up when she sees what Lucy is holding.

“Come on.” Lucy repeats. “If this is so important to you, let’s do this the old-fashioned way, by practice.”

Kara’s first throw goes wild, shooting backwards in a wide arc, and landing somewhere out on the street.

“Again.” Lucy says, but steps forward before Kara actually throws, laying a steadying hand against her back, and using her other hand to tug at Kara’s outstretched throwing arm.

“Not so straight.” she murmurs, pulling the arm backwards. “Bend it a little.”

Kara draws in a breath, and when Lucy looks at her face, it’s a little flushed. Lucy stiffens, and then feels her own face shift expressions in amusement. Once upon a time, Kara’s reaction would have sent her into a depressing fit of introspection. It would have given way to feelings of inadequacy, because of course James would prefer a girl like this, with a natural buoyancy and naivete that Lucy had never managed, even before her three years in Afghanistan had changed her irrevocably.

Now, she knows the full extent of what Kara has been through, and Lucy has only admiration that she has managed to come out of the other side like this.

_Admiration?_

Lucy stalls. No, admiration is the wrong word. Fondness, she decides after some thought. Fondness is closer to the truth. A lot of fondness. So much fondness.

A stronger word than that is terrifying to contemplate, just now.

“How was that?” Kara interrupts her thoughts.

Lucy realizes that Kara has attempted two more throws while she herself had been preoccupied. She follows Kara’s outstretched arm to-

“Kara you’ve knocked out my orchid plant!”

Kara winces.

“Sorry.” she says. “The third one was better, though.”

“It’s fine.” Lucy says. “It was dying, anyway. I don’t really know how to take care of them.”

The plant had been a gift from Lois.

“Oh, you should ask Aunt Astra for tips!” Kara says, expression brightening. “She’s really good at gardening.”

“Yeah, ok.” Lucy says, like that’s not a terrifying thought at all, asking Kara’s formerly-villainous aunt for _gardening_ tips. That one time when Astra had been dissatisfied with her recycling habits had been bad enough.

“No, she really likes you.” Kara insists, twisting around to face her. “She’d be happy to help!”

The movement brings them face-to-face, almost touching, and Lucy steps back instinctively.

“Ok.” she says, feeling inordinately pleased that Kara’s aunt - Kara’s _family_ \- likes her. “I’ll hit her up.”

Kara seems satisfied with that, turning back to the bottles. They keep practising for the better part of an hour, Lucy providing more snarky commentary than actually helping Kara. Kara’s throws still go wide sometimes. Other times, they’re so ridiculous that Lucy suspects she’s fumbling them on purpose, just to get a laugh out of her. Still, there’s definitely a steady improvement noticeable over time.

“Ok, I’m done!” Kara says after a considerable amount of time as passed. She flops down on the ground in a parody of exhaustion. “No more.”

Lucy kneels down, and amusedly pokes at the sprawled Kryptonian.

“You _did_ get it right those last couple of times.” she concedes.

“Yeah, but Alex wasn’t here, so I can’t rub it in her face.” Kara says.

“We’ll get to that later.” Lucy says, rising. “If you stop whining, we can go to Noonan’s for a late breakfast. My treat.”

Kara protests the whining thing, and Lucy responds with something teasing, and then they’re heading out the door towards the cafe, all thoughts of bottle flipping forgotten for the moment.

\---

 

Kara, being Kara, doesn’t forget it entirely, though.

There’s an alien hostile rampaging in the downtown core of National City, right in the middle of the lunch hour rush. He’s a Braxian, systematically experimented on by Cadmus before being let loose to terrorize civilians, and fan anti-alien hysteria. Supergirl manages to corner him in a park. Lucy and the other DEO agents keep watch from an unmarked van nearby, as she engages him.

“She’s trying to talk him down.” Alex says anxiously from beside Lucy, both of them staring through the window in the direction of the showdown. For once, Lucy has managed to get her to stay in the van instead of following Kara out, because there’s only one hostile and Astra is circling around the park, ready to swoop in if necessary. “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

The Braxian doesn’t seem willing to listen, leading to a flurry of blows being exchanged between him and Supergirl. Then, Kara sweeps up with an uppercut that leaves him sprawling and unconscious, vulnerable enough that Lucy judges it safe to send out DEO agents to secure him.

“Let’s see if the doctors at the medical bay can undo whatever Cadmus did to him.” Lucy says, ready to turn away from the window, before she realizes that Supergirl hasn’t flown away, but is moving in the direction of the media vans instead.

“What is she doing?” Alex hisses, sounding even more worried now.

“She _isn’t_.” Lucy says in disbelief, as Kara moves through the row of vans, before stopping in front of the CatCo one.

Alex lets out a noise of frustration, while Lucy turns away from the window to turn on the TV installed in the DEO van, flipping to catch the CatCo live broadcast.

“Hey, kids.” Supergirl is saying into the screen with a face-splitting smile. “Wanna see a cool trick?”

She plucks out a plastic bottle from the the ground.

“Oh no.” Lucy says.

“She isn’t.” Alex growls, echoing Lucy’s earlier words.

On the screen, Kara flies back so the camera can get a full view of her, and carefully balances the bottle in her grip, before tossing it up in the air.

The camera pans up to follow the trajectory, up and up and up, as it disappears right into the glare of the sunlight. Even Alex is silent behind Lucy, both of them holding their breath. A few seconds later, there’s a glint of light, as the bottle tumbles back down. Lucy can hear muted shouts from the crowd, as it falls and falls and falls-

\- before coming to a perfect upright stop on the ground, right in front of Supergirl.

The DEO agents in the van erupt into silent celebration, pumping fists and high-fiving each other. Even Alex is grinning. Outside, the roar of the crowd from the park is deafening, everyone coming together in celebration of such a simple thing. And in the center of it all is Kara, looking flushed with pleasure and triumph.

“Don’t litter, kids!” she says quickly, before the camera leaves her, following her words by picking the bottle up and throwing it into a recycle bin nearby.

“That asshole.” Alex says from behind Lucy, but her tone is fond.

Lucy doesn’t say anything. She’s just staring at the screen, thinking, _oh, that’s what it is._

 _This_ is what James and Lois had seen in Superman. Not the cape, or the super-strength, but this. The joy, the hope, the heart of the city, personified in one person.

  
\---

 

That evening, Lucy finds herself in the CatCo building penthouse. She isn’t Cat’s general counsel anymore, but Cat still requests her to come in for meetings now and then. She writes it off as networking session, but to Lucy at least, it’s more than that. She likes being able to keep in touch with the person who had first seen her as more than James Olsen’s girlfriend or Lois Lane’s sister or General Lane’s daughter.

And if these meetings mean that she gets to hang around Kara’s workplace more often, Lucy considers that to be a bonus.

When Cat calls an early end to their rendezvous that evening, citing an outing to watch the latest Star Wars movie with Carter, Lucy lingers behind, having spotted a familiar figure out on the balcony.

“I thought you were off at six today.” she says, walking out to stand next to Kara.

Kara looks at her and smiles slightly.

“I had an article to catch up on.” she says. “Snapper complained about my lunch break being too long.”

“You mean the break where you decided to show off your bottle flipping skills to the whole city?” Lucy asks, half-disapproving, half-amused. “Do you know they’re _still_ playing that on the news cycle? Snapper should be giving you a day off, not making you stay overtime.”

Kara just shrugs and smiles again, before looking back up at the stars. Lucy wonders what she’s really looking at. Is she remembering her mother? Or her destroyed planet? Whatever it is, she looks a million miles away, untethered to reality, and it feels natural for Lucy to shift forward, bring her arms around Kara from behind, and rest her head in the crook of her neck.

The touch seems to startle Kara, before she melts back into Lucy’s hold.

“What’s all this really about?” Lucy asks, because she knows sisters and families, and complicated relationships, and that there’s more to a seemingly ridiculous thing than what’s showing on the surface.

This time, though, Kara looks pensive.

“I don’t know.” she says. “It just seemed like a fun thing to do, so I did it. That’s my favorite part about it.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asks, confused.

Kara seems embarrassed.

“When I first put on that cape,” she says, “I think at least some part of it was a call for attention. Trying to get my cousin to notice me after, all those years. My cousin, my _family._ ”

Lucy stills. Kara has mentioned something about this before, but she hadn’t known the cut went that deep.

“It’s fine.” Kara says, when Lucy tightens her grip around her shoulders. “You guys...you’re my family now.”

Lucy hums and sinks her head deeper into Kara’s shoulders, liking the sound of that.

“Everytime someone managed to catch me on TV before,” Kara continues, “Some part of me was hoping he was watching, from somewhere. This time wasn’t like that, though. I just thought it would be a laugh, and that maybe it would piss off Alex a little, because she seriously needs to lighten up sometimes.”

She turns to face Lucy, and Lucy lifts her head up from Kara’s shoulders, to meet her eyes.

“It was just... fun.” Kara says. “Watching all of you try it at game night was fun. And practising alone with you, that was fun, too. Not because I was any good at it, but because I got to spend time with you.”

Lucy finds herself smiling back at those words.

“I like spending time with you, too.” she admits, lowly.

Because that’s what this has all led to, hasn’t it? The coffees and early morning meetups and flyby goodnights.

Lucy steps forward, buoyed by the lightness of Kara’s smile, and pressed her lips to hers. It’s just for a few moments, but she feels Kara respond, feels the earnest press against her lips. There is a tongue trailing over her bottom lip, before sucking it in, and there are fingers tracing down her jaw before cradling her face. Then, they are breaking apart, but only Lucy is breathing hard, while Kara seems torn between surprise and happiness.

“I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about.” Kara says, the words coming out slowly.

Lucy considers that statement, before nodding.

“We could make a start on that with a breakfast date at Noonan’s tomorrow.” she says. “Your treat, this time.”

Kara beams at her, bright and shy, and Lucy smiles back, basking in the reflected glow of happiness.

\---

   
  
---


End file.
